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The Circus Is Still in Town

Fred Klein has lived through three hip replacements, ankle and shoulder operations, triple-bypass heart surgery and two spinal fusions. His medical record reads like a grisly episode of "ER." But Klein runs down his chart with relative glee as he nods toward the Madison Square Garden court and declares, without hesitation, "That's worse."

"That" being the Knicks, who are about as broken as broken gets.

A season-ticket holder since 1960, Klein has generally seen it all -- from the Knicks at their most glorious to their most shockingly awful. But he was not prepared for this. The Knicks have the N.B.A.'s highest payroll ($125 million) and its lowest victory total (19), a Hall of Fame coach on the bench, and shame on the court.

"This is my worst disappointment in 46 years," Klein, 71, said Wednesday evening from his second-row baseline seat. "There were years I thought they wouldn't be good. This year, I expected big things."

Three hours later, the Knicks lost their 51st game, a 123-98 rout by the Boston Celtics.

Larry Washington commutes by car and train from Hainesport, N.J., for every Knicks home game. The 80-mile journey can last up to two hours. Washington's seat, in Section 223, is usually vacant before the fourth quarter.

"A lot of times, I don't see the ending, because I get my heart broken," Washington said. "My daughter says: 'Dad, you've got to find some other outlet. This is killing you.' "

But no, you cannot have Washington's seats either. He has no intention of giving them up.

"I need brain surgery," Washington said, joking.

If that is true, New York-area hospitals might soon be jammed with 18,000 mildly deranged Knicks fans. Because even as the Knicks hurtle toward infamy, the people who buy tickets and jerseys and $7.50 beers are, by and large, still buying tickets and jerseys and $7.50 beers.

Call them loyal, stubborn, blindly faithful or sadly gullible. Knicks fans do not appear to be spooked en masse by this historically bad season.

Attendance is down somewhat, 3.5 percent from last season, when the Knicks went 33-49. But they have sold out 20 of 36 home games. Their average attendance, 18,824, ranks eighth in the league -- by far the highest among teams with no shot at the playoffs. (The team does not disclose no-shows, but there did not appear to be wide swaths of empty seats at recent home games.)

The MSG Network, which carries every game, reports a 1.3 rating -- an 8 percent increase over the same period last year. By comparison, the Nets -- who have won twice as many games as the Knicks -- are drawing a 1.0 on the YES Network.

The draw remains strong in cyberspace, too. Traffic on the Knicks' Web site ranks eighth in the league, up from 14th last season.

There is palpable despair in the stands, but it is offset to a degree by an almost irrational blend of hope and devotion.

"The problem really is if you're a true Knick fan, you're never going to give up," said Washington, 60, a retired salesman and Manhattan native. Washington plans to renew his $5,000 seat near midcourt, reasoning, "If you've gone this low this season, next season can't be as bad."

That was the idea last season, too. The Knicks drafted three promising players -- Channing Frye, Nate Robinson and David Lee -- hired Brown, and traded for Eddy Curry. Yet the Knicks, at 19-51, will not match last season's record. They must win 3 of their last 12 games simply to avoid tying the franchise low for victories.

"I can't explain it," said Klein, who spends $21,000 for his two seats. "I blame it on everybody."

On the Internet, the disdain is palpable. In fan forums, disgruntled fans alternately rip Isiah Thomas, the team president, and Brown and Marbury, the feuding coach and point guard.

No one gets hit harder than Thomas. Jail Isiah T-shirts are now being sold at jailisiah.com. Then there is "The Ballad of Isiah," a song posted on youtube.com in which the singer wails, "Putting your faith in Isiah is like dropping acid for a midterm."

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The atmosphere at the Garden, however, is considerably less acerbic. Fans boo now and then but still cheer loudly in the rare moments that the Knicks show life -- as they did in a recent upset victory over Detroit. There have been some isolated "Fire Thomas" chants, but they have been lacking in participation, volume and length.

Apparently, it might take another 50 losses to inspire a full-scale rebellion, or to make anyone give up their seats.

Some hang on for the memories, to what the Knicks were, as opposed to what they are. Fans trying to explain their attachment invoke the names of Red Holzman and Walt Frazier, Willis Reed and Patrick Ewing.

"They brought a lot of good years to the city," Calvin Ratliff, who pays $2,500 for his seat in Section 338, said. "You can't quit on them because they're rebuilding. You've got to go through that."

"Even though they're not doing it right," Ratliff added. "But they're still rebuilding."

Surely, when the Knicks are losing by 20, it must feel like a bad investment. "Never," Ratliff said. Surely, he must sometimes think of canceling his subscription. "Never," Ratliff said.

The Knicks no longer have a waiting list for season tickets, but the open seats are all in the upper-level 300 and 400 sections, according to Hunter Lochmann, the team's vice president for marketing. There have been some cancellations -- Lochmann would not say how many -- but anything that opens in the lower bowl is quickly snapped up by a season subscriber in the upper deck looking to move closer to the court.

"It isn't unprecedented for New Yorkers to fondly like their losing teams," said Barry Truchil, a Bronx native and sociology professor at Rider University in New Jersey. Truchil, who studies sports sociology, pointed to the 1960's Mets. "They were laughable, and we kind of learned to love them and in fact were a little disappointed when they started to win."

The Knicks have not won a championship since 1973 but to many, this is still a basketball town, Truchil said.

"It's my pastime and my passion," Washington said. "I love basketball." Klein, a restaurant broker, has attended all but 32 games in 46 years and has become something of an icon after being featured in recent Knicks TV commercials. "It's a social thing to me," he said. "I just love to be here."

There is also the fear that giving up tickets now could mean missing out on the Knicks' grand renaissance, whenever it arrives. Yet the longer the Knicks go without a winning season -- five years and counting -- the more their followers start to resemble Chicago Cubs fans, who for decades have flocked to Wrigley Field no matter how awful their team was.

"We've kind of learned to endure and somewhat enjoy, to some extent, the misery," Truchil said.

Tony Monte, a season-ticket holder since 1992, has considered canceling his two seats in Section 200 and saving the $7,000 a year.

"I came close many times," Monte, a 40-year-old record company executive, said.

Yet Monte, like most others, keeps swiping the credit card and making the trek to Seventh Avenue and West 33rd Street, to watch the Knicks lose games by the dozen.

Is it misplaced loyalty? Is there a sucker born every New York minute?

"I get that all the time: You renewing this again?" Monte said. But he finds a gratification that supercedes the winning percentage.

"You feel a bit of New York, you feel a little bit about yourselves on the court and in the players," he said. "The Knicks have always embodied the sense and the spirit of what makes up New York. We want results yesterday. But as long as we see the progress, we're a loyal bunch and we'll stick with it as hard and long as we can."

PRO BASKETBALL Correction: April 1, 2006, Saturday A subheading yesterday with a sports article about die-hard Knicks season-ticket holders misstated the given name and background of the man who said, "We've kind of learned to endure and somewhat enjoy, to some extent, the misery." He is Barry Truchil, not Tony, and, as the article said, he is a sociology professor at Rider University in New Jersey; he is not a Knicks fan.

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A version of this article appears in print on March 31, 2006, on Page D00001 of the National edition with the headline: PRO BASKETBALL; The Circus Is Still in Town. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe